Wednesday 21 November 2012 06.48 EST
First published on Wednesday 21 November 2012 06.48 EST

It was approaching a quarter to three on Wednesday morning when Roberto Di Matteo, clad in a club suit and lost in his thoughts, shuffled through Gatwick's south terminal towards the waiting team bus. A gaggle of fans and airport staff asked for photographs in arrivals and were duly obliged, but the Italian managed barely a flicker of a smile on the images that were captured. Even then, he must have guessed what was to follow.

Within hours his desk down at Cobham would be cleared, the manager who had claimed Chelsea's first European Cup almost six months to the day jettisoned and confirmation delivered in that formal 186-word online statement that feels like a template. Recent results, which had yielded two wins in eight matches, had "not been good enough". The "owner and the board" felt a change was necessary "to keep the club moving in the right direction".

"We will never forget the huge contribution [Di Matteo] has made to this club's history and he will always be welcome at Stamford Bridge," where he will be able presumably to sit alongside Carlo Ancelotti, José Mourinho or Avram Grant as managers who have been "reluctantly" axed.

This all feels depressingly familiar. The chairman, Bruce Buck, and the chief executive, Ron Gourlay, had sat in the middle of the plane en route back from Italy, separate from the coaching staff at the front, and had made their own way back to the training ground where the sacking was confirmed. The hierarchy did have valid concerns over the side's recent form. If the initial defeat to Manchester United in the Premier League had felt freakish – with two players sent off just after the hosts clawed themselves level, and a Javier Hernández winner scored from an offside position – then it was shocking how rapidly the team unravelled thereafter. Defeat at West Bromwich Albion on Saturday stretched the winless league sequence to four games. The humiliation in Turin on Tuesday has effectively wrecked the defence of the European Cup, the holders defensively shambolic and with Di Matteo's decision to omit Fernando Torres from his starting lineup politically sensitive.

Had they picked up the point they required at Juventus to keep their destiny in their own hands, then sidelining the misfiring Spaniard – who has registered one goal since the first week of October – might have felt like a masterstroke. Yet in the wake of such a miserable loss it could easily, if wrongly, be seen as Di Matteo's Ruud Gullit moment. For Torres, read Alan Shearer against Sunderland in the deluge at St James' Park in 1999.

Torres's form at Chelsea does not merit the comparison, but he was supposed to be the fulcrum around which this team was built post Didier Drogba. Leaving him out could be perceived as an admission of defeat, even if the outgoing manager should take some satisfaction that he had the guts to drop the favourite. Others would merely have toed the party line and persisted.

There was a dignity to Di Matteo's exit. He had accepted responsibility for Tuesday night's hammering in Italy. "If anyone's to blame, it is me," he had said, even if his team's defending deserved more scrutiny, and he will retreat back on to the job queue as a European Cup winner; in the summer of 2011, when he had accompanied André Villas-Boas to Stamford Bridge, he felt more like a failed West Brom manager.

He deserved better than this, though the reality that he was never first choice to take up the reins permanently last summer had always left him in a glorified caretaker role. There had been no immediate award of a permanent deal after Munich. The two-year contract, complete with break clause, was only agreed in June when it became clear Pep Guardiola would not give up on his idea of a year-long sabbatical.

So, as second choice, results such as the 4-1 drubbing in the European Super Cup in August took on greater resonance. That trophy felt like an irrelevance crammed into the schedule on the night the transfer window closed, when Chelsea might have been better occupied adding a defensive midfielder or second forward to their ranks, but Roman Abramovich wanted it won. Being embarrassed by Radamel Falcao, a player who would surely have flourished at Stamford Bridge, was unacceptable and, as a result, the beginning of the end.

There is already a sense of trepidation, bordering on outrage, among supporters at the prospect of Rafael Benítez taking up the reins even short-term now, and it is incongruous that the former Liverpool manager may consider joining Chelsea as an opportunity to restore his reputation after two years out. Di Matteo was the eighth head coach to oversee the team at Chelsea over Abramovich's 10 seasons, and only Ancelotti has managed to see out a full season since Mourinho departed in the September of 2007. Guardiola remains the long-term target but may look again at that revolving door and wonder whether all this farce is for him. "Roberto helped guide us to an historic Champions League victory and a seventh FA Cup," concluded the club's statement, and yet that was still not enough. This job is a hiding to a huge pay-off.